Five Signals. Five Decisions.

Answer each one honestly. If you check three or more, the student is past the point your internal supports can fix. If you check all five, the window is closing this quarter.

• Has the student accumulated chronic absenteeism (10%+ of days missed) across more than one marking period, despite the supports already in place?
• Are they more than two grade-levels behind in credit accumulation relative to their cohort?
• Have three or more adults in the building started informally lowering expectations for them — accepting late work without consequence, no longer calling on them, treating them as "the kid who won't"?
• Have they shown an inability to make up work even when given extended time, modified deadlines, or 1:1 support?
• Are they 16 or older and showing exit signals — talking about dropping, missing finals, asking how few credits they actually need?

If the family has been through prior programs that failed, they don't trust the next pitch by default. Don't open with the student's deficits. Open with the goal.

What to do:

• Lead with "we want them to graduate" before "they're failing"
• Acknowledge the prior program(s) by name — don't pretend they didn't happen
• Frame the alternative as additional support, never as punishment
• Have a specific next step ready before the call (a contact, a meeting time, a name)
• Don't ask for a decision on the call — ask for a conversation with the program

Every alternative program will look fine on a website. These are the three questions that separate the ones that actually work for over-aged, under-credited students from the ones that just look like they do.

1. 24/7 support availability. Most "alternative programs" still operate on a school-day schedule. The students who need them most need support outside 8–3. Ask directly: "What happens at 9pm when a student is in crisis?"
2. Adult-to-student consistency. These students need ONE consistent adult, not a rotating cast. Ask: "Who specifically will be my student's case manager? How often will that person change?"
3. Pace with accountability, not just self-paced. Self-paced is the standard but most of these students need daily check-ins to actually move. Ask: "How does the program enforce daily progress? What happens when a student stops engaging for two days?"

Before you send the referral, document everything in the student's permanent file. This protects your school in audits and IEP/504 reviews, and gives the receiving program a complete picture instead of a vague handoff.

What to log:

• Attendance pattern with specific dates and total days missed per marking period
• Every intervention already attempted — what, when, with what result
• Parent communication attempts (date, method, what was discussed, outcome)
• Academic gap: credits earned versus credits needed for grade-level promotion
• Any incident reports, mental health flags, or external referrals already made

The signal is this: the student has stopped showing up to make up failed work.

Not "they're missing class." Not "they're late on assignments." That's behavior, and behavior is recoverable.

When a student stops attempting to recover credits — when they no longer try to make up the work even when given a clean path to do it — the issue has crossed from behavior into identity. They no longer see themselves as someone who finishes things. Once that flip happens, internal interventions almost never work, because the intervention is asking them to act like the person they no longer believe they are.